How the Bureaucracy Lost its Builders
Why midcentury "modernization" reorganized expertise out of existence.
Today’s federal agencies face a broad loss of confidence in their claims to expertise. A century ago, federal agencies also operated amid intense populist distrust, yet were run by scientists and engineers who served across administrations. My new article examines how early agencies’ organization made expertise credible and how midcentury reforms eroded that credibility. I lay out the full history in Personnel is Policy: The Fabric of Government Organization, recently published in American Affairs.
Really interesting, Kevin. Provoked thinking on further inquiry into the impact of the interlocking oversight and budget formation of Committees on the Hill that maintains the functional structures, the duality of customer experience versus stewardship in agency missions, the scourge of defaulting to representation, and the rationale for the pockets of expertise that still exist (e.g., NIH, USGS, NOAA).
excellent!